Chad Yakobson of The Crooked Stave brewing gave a great presentation on brewing with brett. He had really easy to understand explanations on how to ferment with either 100% brettanomyces or blended fermentations. I thought it was really interesting that the time at which the brett is added during a brettanomyces/servomyces can really change to flavor of the finished beer.

Basically brett added later in the fermentation gives much more “funk” to the beer, while brett added earlier in the fermentation gives a cleaner, less “barnyard type of flavor. Chad also gave some really good information

Randy did a great job of covering common off flavors in beer. He gave some great information on common off flavors in beer and how they result, with a specific focus on proper serving, pouring and handling of beer. I learned some particularly gross details on what a dirty draft system does to your beer. Yuck. Bacterial colonies in a faucet can actually travel all the way down a beer line and into a keg if a draft line infection gets bad enough.

Randy also had some great things to say about dirty glassware, or glassware that still has soap on it. He also had some great explanations on why it is a bad idea to serve beer on blended gas, and why so many pub owners do it (basically it makes the beer flat if you don’t do it right, but it also keeps beer from foaming).

You can find info on the Cicerone program here, which Randy has taken great steps to train beer servers, brewers and retailers on how to store, package, and serve a beer to keep all those wonderful flavors intact. http://www.cicerone.org/

And of course the day would not be complete without checking out a little bit of bling:

The John & Crew of Blichmann Engineering gave us a sneak peak at their newest offering. “The Tower of Power”! The tower of power is a mudular structure that allows precise control over kettle temperature by regulating the gas flow to your top tier burner. He does this with a digital controller, a striker and a gas solenoidvalve to control the flow of propane into the burner. The Tower is also available with an integrated March 809 Pump, flow controller, & 3 way flow control valves. Very cool. I cant wait to have one of these in the shop to drool over.

Here are a couple of Tower of power Pics. In case you miss it in the pictures there is also a USB port in the back of it so you can plug in a laptop. And pictures:

Ohh yeah. The Blichmann Guys have also updated their “Quick Connector” design. They have changed the washer location (so they don’t fall out all the time), and added a silicone hand grip so you can grab the nut on these while the fitting is hot. They also have it available with an optional 90 degree bend on the output to keep your tubes from kinking when you put hot wort through these fittings.

Heres a pic of that design:

To finish off the night Owen from wyeast labs was kind enough to share a wide variety of belgains with myself, Sean Paxton, The guys from Northern Brewer & Midwest Homebrew supplies among others. We werent really sure what was what because all the labels were in Flemish or French, but the beers were really great. I particularly enjoyed one that was brewed with spelt and wheat. Very nice Belgium, very nice.

Here are some pics of our great Belgian Beer experience.

Thanks for reading guys. It’s back to NHC recovery now for me. More to come as I get time. Be sure to bug AHA to post those slides of you get a chance :).